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I had the opportunity to spin the cranks on a new Demo 11 that was in stock at my LBS (shoutout to InCycle in Pasadena), and there was a CRAZY amount of stiction or drag in the cranks/chains/freehub/somewhere when I did a backspin on the cranks. My questions are: Does that drag get better over time, as seals and/or chains break in? And has Specialized quantified how much drag the HighGear system produces, in terms of watts lost to drag at various inout power or RPM levels?

On the one hand, I really doubt the math on that number, and feel like it can't be right. On the other hand, I can't think of a reason why a rider would want soooooo much rearward axle movement in the first 30% of travel. I imagine it would make pumping and cornering feel really weird. Remember how people said the Trust fork didn't absorb vertical "slap down" forces, and hurt their wrists? A lot of that was because the axle moved back a lot in the first portion of travel instead of mostly moving up like a telescopic fork...

Yes, I agree with your math. What I'm saying is that 30mm of rearward movement at the sag point seems like way too much. For instance, if there was 44mm of total rearward movement (which is a ton for any 170mm bike), and for simplicity sake the axle path was a straight line sloping back, that would still only be 13.2mm of rearward movement (aka chainstay growth) at the sag point.

I have indeed: https://www.vitalmtb.com/product/guide/hydraulic-disc-brakes/hope-techn….

This statement "Dominions have a light stroke but take a lot of force to get enough power out" sounds like a pad or rotor issue to me. I have tested the Dominions extensively against many other high-performance brakes, and while they fall just short of something like a Maven or a Hope EVO GR4, I still put them firmly in the "powerful brakes" category. They do have that superlight action as you initiate the brake, they then tend to bite pretty good on first contact and keep building from there. When compared to the absolutely effortless way the Mavens deliver...

Alloy rims?

The riders seem stoked on the new track, here's Dak with some insights:

PIT BITS just dropped! It's ON!

If you're not from the US and you haven't seen this yet, I can't recommend it enough. It explains a lot:

The derailleur cost doesn't bother me, it's the 500 usd 7 speed cassette that does. They could go with bolt on drive side drop out and keep the adjustment, leave the non drive side alone. But yeah, changing the rear triangle design to accommodate a single derailleur is short sighted, maybe when mechanical DH transmission or a lower price point comes along.

It looks to be DW6, just like the Phoenix https://www.instagram.com/reels/DHZbUOEuMNj/